Dear Rookie Moms: How to introduce formula

My friend Deborah, who works full time in the San Francisco area, was ready to kiss her pumping days bye bye. As a dutiful pumper, she had amassed a tremendous supply of breast milk in her freezer and had not yet spent her hard-earned money on formula. She asked how to introduce it to her 8-month old baby. She also wondered “Is it possible to keep nursing when I am no longer pumping?”

I’ll answer the second question first, based on personal experience: You can keep nursing as long as you want. Probably. I nursed my kids just twice per day – morning and night – for MONTHS. Like 5 months! Seriously, they were walking (!) and only nursed for bedtime and wake up. Finally for the last month (around 15 months old) it was just morning.

I was also a very very slow weaner, dropping one feeding/pumping per month. I started with dropping the pumping sessions because to be liberated from the pump was my key objective! That machine is both the savior and the hell of a working nursing mother.

Then again, some babies have different agendas around 8 months and decide that the world is too interesting to bother with nursing. My friend Erin experienced this with both of her children right around the same time. She spent weeks trying to get them back on the boob, without success. They loved their bottles and never looked back!

Here are a few options for introducing formula:

1) Slowly: mix it properly first, and then do a cocktail of 25% formula 75% breastmilk. If she goes for it, after a few feedings, go to 50/50. If that mixture is not rejected, you’re good to go!

2) Quickly: simply offer a bottle of formula and see how it goes. Plenty of kids have enjoyed it for years and yours might be one of them. If not, consider option #1 or option #3.

3) As a side dish: Use formula in her cereal to make the taste familiar. Add a bit to any pureed food to dilute it.

Let’s also ask the crowd: was this an issue for you? Did your baby have a hard time with formula or no problem at all? My own kids refused bottles completely, so that’s a whole other issue!

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents and are the authors of The Rookie Mom's Handbook and Stuff Every Mom Should Know.

I would not recommend option 2 unless it is your only option (out of breast milk). We had a LOT of issues with alternating breast milk and formula… constipation, fussiness, gas. The way our ped explained it, we were constantly taxing their stomachs by giving them a bottle of formula then a bottle of breastmilk, etc. Their GI systems never knew what was coming. He recommended going with option 1 and keeping it consistent.

I would also say to start with generic formula. Once your baby starts having one type of formula, it can introduce GI problems if you switch to a different type.

I would also say on #3 to mix the formula with oatmeal cereal rather than rice cereal. Rice cereal + formula = constipation. It may even be more difficult for a breastfed baby to suddenly deal with that combination.

And with any introduction of formula, I would say to have peaches/pears/prunes ready!

my son had no issues between formula and breast milk. I had to give him formula early on, because I couldn’t pump enough and didn’t want to mix the b-milk and risk having to throw it away. So he just got a formula bottle in the afternoon. We stopped nursing around 9 months, he never cared where his food came from just as long as it was plentiful. I second the comment on generic brands formula is crazy expensive. Start with the cheapest and work your way up only if you have to. Our grocery store even had a generic organic formula, which is what we used. Now going from formula to milk gave us some issues, but that’s for another time.

I’m curious what to do when your baby just won’t take a bottle. He’s 3 months old and will be almost 4 months when I go back to work… so he doesn’t so much have the luxury of waiting for the real thing.

We’ve tried a couple of different brands of bottles – should we just keep trying? We don’t have that much time yet and I’m starting to panic that his day care is going to call me to pick him up and feed him my first day back.

Dear Rookie Moms,
thank you for saving my sanity once more! this is at least the third time that I had lost all hope to get usefull advice, went to your blog and find the answer. Thank you so much! now i should just remember to check your blog before having sleepless nights.

I’m in favor of option #1, especially with babies who haven’t started solids yet. You might not have as much of a problem if your little one is getting a well rounded diet of fruits and veggies, but when I went cold turkey with my 3mo, he experienced severe constipation. Had I known that was coming, I would have tried a much more gradual changeover. If you’re forced to go with the quick approach, I’d keep some apple / prune juice on hand and give some to the little one at the first sign of a back up. (talk to your ped to see how much you can give and if it needs to be cut with water)

I also second the earlier comment on generic formula. While the government regulates what goes into formula, there’s something programmed in our brains that tells us we practically have to dumpster dive to collect coupons for Similac or Enfamil…but it’s just not worth it. After Similac recalled their powdered formula due to insect infestation, that’s when I realized I didn’t need to pay more for quality. I’ll take the store brand without the added protein please and thank you.

I stopped pumping when my son hit one, he’s 2.5 now and I’m STILL nursing him! Through pregnancy! Breastfeeding is a supply and demand situation. As long as you’re putting baby to breast, your boobs will keep producing. You may not be able to pump as much as you once did, but pumping output is no indication of supply anyway (baby is much better at removing milk from the breast than a pump.)

Elizabeth – see “aint no mom jeans blog” (sometimes guest stars here) for her advice on Power pumping. I stopped pumping at 1 yr but still breastfeed my 20 mos old at wake-up and bed time. Your body will figure it out.

I just got through that particular circle of hell -baby hates da bottle.
What I had to do was this:
I pumped and got a few ounces (3-4). Because of how frustrating it was to watch my breastmilk go down the drain, I broke up the milk into .25 ounces and put those bottles in the fridge. I had all different kinds of bottle/nipple combinations.

I would nurse my baby and an hour after I nursed I would warm up a bottle and let the baby just play with it. For a couple of weeks she just gnawed on them, sometimes she would cry, and mostly milk got everywhere but in her tummy. When she actually would put the nipple in her mouth and bite down and play and giggle, then I made the assumption that this was the nipple she would tolerate. From that point on I just used that nipple. Slowly but surely, day after day of this, and dumping milk down the drain, she finally one day sucked a little. Then the next day she sucked a little more and I heard a gulp. Finally, one day she just decided to suck suck suck and gulp gulp gulp. She still is no master bottle feeder but she will take it and I use it as part of the appetizer before our bedtime routine.

I have also heard people saying you could easily just have her go straight to a cup. I didn’t try that, because I couldn’t find any resources on how to do it, but you might want to give it a shot.

Option number one is a great way to waste breast milk. One you mix in formula, all the rules revert to formula rules and you cannot save any unused milk.

My daughter got milk from me, straight from the tap, and formula in a bottle. I was a really truly low supplier. She never had any issues. We would actually do both in one feeding – eat from mommy first, and finish the feeding with 3-4 ounces of formula.

Another suggestion is to always have someone else give the bottle. If you aren’t the one there, they won’t expect Mom’s milk.

Finally – to “elizabeth” yes, is it absolutely possible to get your milk back. Look into “relactation” if your supply is completely gone. Many woman have done it!

[…] I have had 4 glorious months of maternity leave and am returning to full-time work in the first week of January. We have child care arranged and a steadily growing stash of pumped milk in the freezer. […]